Friday evening things

 * got enough done (caught up on grading, typed up the AAUW minutes, wrote an exam for next week, did the necessary planning for next week) that I COULD run out to shop tomorrow if I decide I want to

It will come down to how my leg feels. If it feels OK when I get up, I would like to get to the yarn shop again and maybe to Michael's and Target.

One thing that frustrates me about this injury and that has been instructive to me about chronic pain/chronic illness: you can make plans, but you might not be UP TO doing those plans. I like to be the kind of person who has plans, and the kind of person who takes advantage of free time, and so it frustrates me to wake up in pain and not be able to DO. 

Also, this morning, my right knee tried to flex backward (I caught myself quickly though) and then it hurt much of the rest of the day, but settled down with a change of shoes and a little more gentle walking.

I am to the point where I can walk short distances - especially in my house where I have the more-forgiving wood floors - without the cane. I keep it nearby in case I feel weak or have pain, but I'm hoping in maybe another month I'll be able to give it up for good? I hope?

This weekend will be the two-month mark for the injury; I've read they can take anywhere from 2 months to 2 years to heal totally. 

* I'm still reading on the book about the moon but it's slow going because the historical material it covers where I am now (Ancient Greece and other locations about that time) is something less familiar to me and I have to keep going back and re-reading to keep names straight). 

I am also reading a new-to-me Gideon Fell mystery (Author is John Dickson Carr, or at least that's the nom de plume he used for these). It's called "The Seat of the Scornful" and is a new republishing from the British Library series, which are nice little books. They do have a note at the beginning pointing out that these books are very of their time, and mostly they have not edited out some of the things "problematic" today. 

And yeah, a character in the section I used last night used a slur for a person of Italian heritage that I had forgotten even existed. (I've heard it before but those kinds of things are rare enough in my circle that I can forget about them in the day to day). (I'm not Italian; I am mainly of Irish and German heritage, and yeah, there are slurs about those though I tend to feel they're less offensive to me than the n-word would be to a Black person, probably because i haven't suffered for my heritage during my life)

It is jarring and again surprises me to remember that "yeah people once talked like that casually." So I guess while even though I see a lot of "backsliding" in recent years in how we treat each other, in most polite company, slurs aren't tolerated any more they way they used to be. (Heh. Kind of like smoking indoors, when you think about it - both being forms of pollution)

* Still working on the modified-feather-and-fan pattern socks; I think I am going to do 60 rounds on the cuff before starting the heel flap. (Or 64, if 60 seems too short). I've got a couple other patterns I want to start - a pattern for socks that claim it breaks up pooling on multicolored yarns (and I have a LOT of those) and a very simple tunic-type sweater I want to make out of the odd green yarn I bought the last time I was at JoAnn's. It would make good invigilating knitting as it's almost entirely stockinette and it's knit in the round. 

* Also, a friend on Bluesky linked this and I listened to it, despite never receiving an official diagnosis of any mental health issue, but some of things feel, yes, very familiar, especially some of the situational stuff I've dealt with (especially in the wake of my dad's death in 2019, and today I scheduled a class thing for the 13th, and I suddenly remembered that would have been his 89th birthday, and felt a little pang)

A couple salient points for me: you have to actually do maintenance to keep your life happy; you have to work at it just like you have to work at eating healthfully and getting exercise and getting enough sleep. 

But the bigger thing, his comment about having to battle meaninglessness, isolation, and exhaustion, and boy darn, that was my 2020. And that's been points since then during the past 4 years. But I like his comment about how you can fight those - the meaninglessness by doing things that are "personal development" especially. I guess I do struggle a bit with a form of the "grindset" idea - though less in the "let's make a pile of money" than in the "you must do Great Things with this life you're given" and a feeling that my life lacks meaning. But "personal development" can be "things you enjoy that you move forward in and improve at" and you know? On the days I make time to practice piano I am happier than days when I do not. I always thought it was that "well, on those days, I am less busy and because I'm less busy I'm happier" but maybe it actually is "I am doing something for myself that I can see myself progressing at and getting better at and that makes me happier" (I think trying to learn German with Duolingo helps with that a bit too). Reading works, too, and of late I've taken less time to read than is ideal.  Isolation is harder for me to fight because I really don't get a whole hour of in-person high-quality human contact (where I am not working and having to be responsible for other people, like in class), and that was the thing during 2020 that nearly killed me - not having another human to talk to, and I tended to ruminate, and having no one to bounce my thoughts off of (and be told, "you're catastrophizing" or "no, that bad thing you think about yourself isn't true) so since I only "hear" myself I come to believe it.

And exhaustion; yeah I have noticed that with this injury, when I was not sleeping well because of pain, and being tired from pain REALLY puts a "boot" on both your emotions and your ability to think. The second half of January and the first part of February, I don't really remember very well, because I was so focused on just getting through the days without major jolts of pain. I can see I am getting better on that front - I sleep better now (less pain) and I feel like I can think more clearly and I feel like I am teaching better. (A very depressing thing early in the injury was that I knew I was teaching badly, but didn't have the energy to try harder to be better at it). 

But yeah - maybe actually EVERYONE has to work at these things to enjoy life, though people who are depressed or anxious have to work harder at it, and maybe get more of those good things.